The Yanomami’s conception of their environment 


‘The Yanomami envision the universe as being constructed of four layers hovering atop one another with a thin layer of space between them’ (Peters-Golden, 2012, pg 273). These different layers are called, from top to bottom, as the Yanomami believe that things ‘tend to move downward in the Yanomamo cosmos, falling or descending into a lower layer’ (Chagnon, 1992 pg 100), the Duku Ka Misi, Hedu Ka Misi, Hei Ka Misi and Hei Ta Bebi. The top layer has little to do with the Yanomami in their daily life, but in Chagnon’s ethnograhy, he mentions that in this layer, despite being empty now, was the origin for material things. (Chagnon, 1992, pg 100). The Yanomami can only see the underside of the next layer, but above it, there consists a world much like the environment around them and composed of the same elements. The only difference is this layer, Hedu Ka Misi, is inhabited by deceased Yanomamo. The underside is the sky that the Yanomami can visibly see, with the celestial bodies that ‘move across it along their individual trails, east to west.’ (chagnon). He also mentions that the Yanomami don’t have much mythology or understanding of astronomy with the exception of the idea of stars as fish moving across the sky. The level the Yanomami live on was formed by a piece of the hedu falling down, and contains not just Yanomami but also peoples who are strange versions of their own people, and this is how they perceive foreigners and other human beings. (Chagnon, 1992, pg 101). 

Underneath the hei ka misi is home to the Amahiri-teri, who ended up inhabiting this layer underneath when a piece of the hedu fell through their village on Hei Ka Misi, and left them without a forest, animals, plants, or any of the familiar elements of the above layer, forcing them to cannibalism. The Yanomami believe the spirits of these cannibals underneath come up and prey on their children; the potential for Yanomami to turn to cannibalism is a worry that dominates their thinking. (Chagnon, 1992, pg 101). The Jaguar is an important figure in Yanomami culture and life, and even though they identify with the jaguar as an equal, they are also quick to make the distinction between them and the animal, in that ‘humans have culture, whereas animals do not’ (Chagnon, 1992, pg 105). They have a clear distinction between the forest and the village. This is unlike Mbuti in Africa, where there is no nature-culture dichotomy; everything, including their bodies, is made of the same material as the forest surrounding them (Mosko, 1987, pg 900). 















References:

N. Chagnon (1992) Yanomamo, United States of America: Holt, Rineheart and Winston, Inc. 

H Peters-Golden (2012) Culture Sketches: Case Studies in Anthropology, United States of America: McGraw Hill

M. Mosko (1987) ‘The Symbols of “Forest”’, American Anthropologist, vol 89:4, pg. 900